Today is Wednesday, Oct. 25, the 298th day of 2017. There are 67 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Oct. 25, 1854, the "Charge of the Light Brigade" took place during the Crimean War as an English brigade of more than 600 men charged the Russian army, suffering heavy losses.
On this date:
In 1415, during the Hundred Years' War, outnumbered English soldiers led by Henry V defeated French troops in the Battle of Agincourt in northern France.
In 1760, Britain's King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.
In 1929, former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall was convicted in Washington, D.C. of accepting a $100,000 bribe from oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny. (Fall was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000; he ended up serving nine months.)
In 1939, the play "The Time of Your Life," by William Saroyan, opened in New York.
In 1945, Taiwan became independent of Japanese colonial rule.
In 1954, a meeting of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Cabinet was carried live on radio and television; to date, it's the only presidential Cabinet meeting to be broadcast.
In 1957, mob boss Albert Anastasia of "Murder Inc." notoriety was shot to death by masked gunmen in a barber shop inside the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York.
In 1962, during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson II demanded that Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin confirm or deny the existence of Soviet-built missile bases in Cuba; Stevenson then presented photographic evidence of the bases to the Council.
In 1971, the U.N. General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.
In 1983, a U.S.-led force invaded Grenada at the order of President Ronald Reagan, who said the action was needed to protect U.S. citizens there.
In 1994, Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina, claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two young sons (Smith later confessed to drowning the children in John D. Long Lake, and was convicted of murder). Three defendants were convicted in South Africa of murdering American exchange student Amy Biehl.
In 2002, U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota along with his wife, daughter and five others, a week and a-half before the election. Actor Richard Harris died in London at age 72.
